All Forum Posts by: Kee Lee

 If you just had remediation done, talk to that company and get them to come back and look at it.  They probably missed something.

Spend a couple hundred dollars and have an attorney draft a f*** off letter. 

Dear Tenant:

As you are aware, the water leak was directly caused by your failure to change the air filter. It is your responsibility to change the air filter to prevent this from occurring (see Lease, page 3, paragraph 2). 

Your negligence in failure to change the air filter has directly caused me to incur significant expenses. Not only did I have to hire someone to diagnose and remedy the cause of the leak, as well as dry the affected area, but I am now facing a $12,000 expense to remediate the mold your negligence caused.

Due to your negligence causing these large expenses, it is necessary for me to file a claim with your renters insurance policy. If you also have losses that you feel may be covered under your renters insurance policy, I suggest you do the same. However, I bear no responsibility for your damages as they were directly caused by your negligent actions.

Sincerely,

Landlord

PS: Your rent will be going up due to this!!

Unfortunately with tenants you can't trust them to keep up with things like replacing furnace/ductless filters,  smoke detector batteries,  or sometimes even light bulbs.   

This is one reason regular inspections are important.  AT LEAST annually,   for tenants you don't trust or who are new,  consider finding a reason to come in after the first 3 months or so,   then 6 month intervals until you decide if they are trustworthy or not.   You can check all this stuff,  remind the tenant to do the basic maintenance/cleaning or if necessary do it yourself and bill them for it.    I discovered I had a hoarder tenant at one point when they took a nearly-brand-new reno unit to waist-full with clothes and junk within 2 months of move in.   They must have stored it all someplace.     That is a long story but the summary was keeping engaged with the tenant kept a bad situation from becoming worse,   and eventually convinced them to move out.

I don't disagree with standing your ground and holding the tenant responsible for paying for damage they caused,   but good luck getting a lump sum payment from any tenant,  especially a section 8 one.    Document everything. 

One thought on the example letter though,  don't say the rent increase WILL go up because of something the tenant did.   Some judge(s) and regulatory people out  there would jump on that that as evidence of retaliation.   Increase the rent more than usual,   just don't link it to the tenants behavior.    If they ask,  just say you are adjusting income to keep up with expenses.

Filing a claim against the tenants insurance if they actually have it is probably a good move.  You might also discuss it with your insurance provider.   They would probably pay (something anyway) faster and will turn around and bill back to the responsibile party,  in this case the tenant if they agree with what happened.    I had a similar situation except a tenant cause a kitchen fire accidentally.    The plus side of this is my insurance did all the chasing around of the tenant and their insurance so I only had to focus on fixing the unit.

@David Avery when's the last time you dealt with S8 lease?

Section 8 is NOT responsible for repairs and they do NOT guarantee rent!

S8 HAP contracts only state that S8 pay $x rent on behalf of the tenant as long as the tenant, home and landlord meet the eligibility requirements.

@Kee Lee  since you said they were older it may be possible that someone became eligible for social security resulting in the change. 

If This is a section 8 tenant. 

Section 8 should really take care of all repairs and should terms tenants lease ASAP. 

guaranteed 1 year rent. 

unless it has changed. 

@Kee Lee  and did I read right that these are section 8 tenants?  How would free rent even work? Do you have to report that to their caseworker.  I would terminate them if you could for causing the issue.